Knight Without Armour Read Online Free PDF

the midst of it, shouted and screamed like the rest, and managed in the end
to secure two seats in a third-class coach. He had no concealments and no
embarrassments; his excitableness, his determination, his inquisitiveness,
his everlasting talk about women, were all purified, some-how, by the
essential naturalness that lay behind them all. The train was full of
soldiers, with whom he soon became friendly, playing cards with them
sometimes and telling stories, probably very gross, that convulsed them with
laughter. The soldiers were very polite and gave up the best places to A.J.
and the Italian; they also made tea for them and brought them food from the
station buffets. When A.J. saw the English correspondents bawling from
first-class compartments to station officials who took little notice of them,
he realised how much more fortunate he had been himself The hours slipped by
very pleasantly; as he sat silent in his corner- seat listening to continual
chatter which he did not understand and watching the strange monotonous
landscape through the window, he began to feel a patient and rather
comfortable resignation such as a grown-up feels with a party of children.
The soldiers laughed and were noisy in just the sharp, instant way that
children have; they had also the child’s unwavering heartlessness. One
of them in the next coach fell on to the line as he was larking about, and
all his companions roared with laughter, even though they could see he was
badly injured.
    Harbin was reached after a week’s slow travelling from Irkutsk. At
first sight it seemed the unpleasantest town in the world; its streets were
deep in mud; its best hotel (in which Barellini obtained accommodation) was
both villainous and expensive; and its inhabitants seemed to consist of all
the worst ruffians of China and Siberia. Many of them were, in fact,
ex-convicts. A.J. was glad to set out the next day for Mukden, in which he
expected to have to make his headquarters for some time. The thirty-six
hours’ journey involved another scrimmage for places on the train, but
he was getting used to such things now, and Barellini’s company
continued to make all things easy. He was beginning to like the talkative
Italian, despite the too- frequently amorous themes of his conversation, and
when he suggested that they should join forces in whatever adventures were
available, A.J. gladly agreed.
    A.J. had no romantic illusions about warfare, and was fully prepared for
horrors. He was hardly, however, prepared for the extraordinary confusion and
futility of large-scale campaigning between modern armies. Nobody at Mukden
seemed to have definite information about anything that was happening; the
town was full of-preposterous rumours, and most of the inhabitants were
rapidly growing rich out of the war business. All the foreign correspondents
were quartered in a Chinese inn, forming a little international club, with a
preponderance of English-speaking members. A.J. found the other Englishmen
less stand-offish when he got to know them better; several became quite
friendly, and gave him valuable tips about cabling his news, and so on. The
trouble was that there was so little news to cable.
    The ancient Chinese city wore an air of decay that contrasted queerly with
the sudden mushroom vitality infused by the war. A.J. had plenty of time for
wandering about among the picturesque sights of the place; indeed after a
week, he knew Mukden very much better than he knew Paris or Berlin. Then came
the sudden though long-awaited permission for war-correspondents to move
towards the actual battle-front. Barellini and A.J. were both attached to a
Cossack brigade, and after a tiresome journey of some sixty miles found
themselves courteously but frigidly welcomed by General Kranazoff and his
staff The general spoke French perfectly, as also did most of his officers.
He obviously did not like the English, but he talked about English